Master Barber Daniel Wilkerson III has set a goal for himself: level up. For Wilkerson, leveling up isn't simply about becoming a better barber or growing professionally. He has intentionally decided to organize his community work more formally and strategically.
His thinking is simple: If he can strengthen himself first, he can do more for others.
That means building relationships. Developing partnerships. Learning how organizations operate. Identifying resources. Documenting his work. Measuring results. Increasing his credibility. And turning individual community activities into opportunities that can grow and become sustainable.
Instead of viewing community service as a series of unrelated events, Wilkerson is beginning to treat each experience as another building block toward something larger.
From Giving Back to Building Capacity.
Grooming professionals have a long history of giving back through free haircuts, back-to-school events, and other community activities.
Wilkerson has participated in those activities, but he now sees his work differently.
The question isn't simply, "Where can I volunteer next?"
It's also, "What can I learn, build, or establish through this experience that increases my ability to make an even greater impact next time?"
That shift changes each project's purpose.
A community activity can create a relationship. That relationship can become a partnership. A successful partnership builds experience and credibility. Documenting the results creates evidence. And that evidence can help attract additional partners, resources, and opportunities.
Each experience can therefore increase Wilkerson's capacity for the next one.
He isn't just organizing projects. He is intentionally organizing his own growth.
Looking Beyond the Haircut
One of the clearest examples of Wilkerson's approach came through his connection with Hebron-Harmons Elementary School.
He learned that the school had students facing barriers to consistent hair care.
The most immediate response would have been to provide haircuts.
Wilkerson looked deeper.
He recognized that providing grooming services requires an appropriate environment in which professionals can actually work. Instead of addressing only the immediate need, he helped deliver and assemble four portable haircutting stations for the school.
Those stations helped create a functional grooming environment that volunteer, sponsored, or contracted grooming professionals can use.
That distinction is important.
A haircut serves a student. Infrastructure can help build the capacity to serve students repeatedly.
A functional working environment can also make the experience better for the professionals providing services—and potentially make them more willing to return.
Wilkerson wasn't simply thinking about what he could personally provide that day. He was considering what needed to be in place for the work to continue.
Turning Each Experience Into an Asset
That same mindset is guiding Wilkerson as he develops relationships with schools and organizations throughout the region.
His work has already reached communities in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, and Howard County.
Each new environment gives him an opportunity to develop another part of his capacity.
He learns how to communicate with school administrators and community organizations. He gains experience assessing needs. He learns how to coordinate resources and other grooming professionals. He sees what makes an outreach activity work—and what keeps it from working.
Organizing the Work More Strategically
Wilkerson is also beginning to put more structure around those activities.
Through Rob's Barbershop Community Foundation, he has access to technical assistance, project support, data collection, and tools for connecting with schools and agencies.
One of those tools is RBCF's Hair Pair Project, a matching platform that allows grooming professionals to identify organizations with grooming-related needs.
But the matching platform doesn't create Daniel's strategy.
Daniel does.
A match can make an introduction, but Wilkerson must determine what happens afterward.
He has to understand the organization's problem, build the relationship, determine what he can contribute, organize resources, follow through on his commitment, and decide whether the initial activity can become something more.
That is why his work represents more than simply using an app to find volunteer opportunities.
He is using the resources available to him to formally organize his development as a community professional.
Building a Record of Impact
Another part of Wilkerson's strategy is documenting what his work actually produces.
Across four documented community activities in 2026, RBCF data shows that Wilkerson's work reached 33 unduplicated individuals and generated 59 documented outputs.
Those outputs included 29 haircuts, four hairstyles, and 26 pieces of equipment and supplies.
His activities included partnerships with Hebron-Harmons Elementary School, Bedford Elementary School, Cradlerock Elementary School, and the Baltimore Ravens Back-to-School initiative.
Over time, that record can show which problems he helped address, where he worked, what resources he contributed, how many people were reached, and what changed because of the work.
That evidence can strengthen his ability to pursue future partnerships, sponsorships, contracts, awards, funding opportunities, and other resources.
Sustainability Starts With the Professional
Perhaps the most interesting part of Wilkerson's strategy is his understanding of sustainability.
Community-minded professionals are often encouraged to think first about how much they can give away.
Wilkerson is considering another side of the equation:
How strong does the person providing the service need to become in order to keep providing it?
A professional with stronger relationships, greater knowledge, better resources, documented results, and more opportunities is better positioned to sustain community work than someone who continually gives without building his or her own capacity.
That doesn't make the work less charitable; in fact, it makes it more so. Wilkerson is still providing haircuts and helping people.
But he's beginning to organize that work around a much bigger goal:
Build himself. Build his capacity. Build sustainable partnerships. Then use all three to build greater community impact.
That is Daniel Wilkerson III's approach to leveling up.
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